


ambience

by badskeletonpuns



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Multi, Post-Hephaestus, Triptych, as in the art form not the night vale episode, but home isn't the same and neither are you, coming home, survivors club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-08-31 13:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8580844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: am·bi·enceNOUN"the character and atmosphere of a place"the feeling of coming home to a someone, more than a somewhere





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harpers_mirror (SapphireBryony)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireBryony/gifts).



Eiffel couldn’t sleep for a couple days after the three of them crash-landed on earth.

He just laid in bed. Minkowski and Lovelace and him had been set up in some cheap motel on government funds while the world tried to figure out what the hell to do with three legally dead astronauts. 

Goddard was not enjoying the PR, to say the least. 

So Eiffel laid in his cheap motel bed and tried not to think about anything at all. He didn’t think about everyone they’d left behind (Hera, can you hear me? I’m still listening for you, baby.) or everything they would have to face again on earth (Officer Eiffel, I’m from Channel Nine, and we all want to know - why were you on the Hephaestus?).

He just stared at the ceiling and thought about pizza, mostly. Caught up with whatever TV show was on the motel’s cable when he was sure Minkowski was asleep and wouldn’t knock on his hotel door and ask if he was okay. The asking, he could handle. Douglas Eiffel was a man all too proficient in fiction. The big sad eyes and dark circles and the slump in her shoulders? 

That was another story entirely. 

It made Eiffel want to pick her up and carry her to her bed and make her get a good night’s sleep and a full meal that wasn’t the sad excuse for a breakfast at the motel and maybe lean on her shoulder and watch the Wicked movie that had come out while they were in space. 

And that was a dangerous thing to want. Also more than a little hypocritical, but that was less of an issue. 

Lovelace was easier to talk to. She was bitter and angry in a way that Eiffel understood, even if he couldn’t make himself feel the same. The captain - former captain, Eiffel corrected himself - had lost an arm and whatever remnants of common sense that she had in an explosion that had ensured their escape. 

Now back on earth, she was going after Goddard with every ounce of energy she had. 

And she had a lot of energy. 

Eiffel helped when he could. She’d saved his and Minkowski’s lives, helping file court documents was literally the least he could do.

Somehow, the rare moments when he could crack a joke and she actually smiled felt a lot more helpful than the filing. She actually laughed once, at a joke Eiffel couldn’t even remember. He just recalled the way her face crinkled at the edges and how her laugh was a lot louder than he had expected and he had suddenly felt like Isabel Lovelace had maybe once been someone very, very different. 

The three of them managed, even though Eiffel was certain not one of them was getting the amount of sleep that came doctor-recommended. They drank too much coffee and didn’t smile very often and threw everything they had into the court case. 

That was living, right?

You just kept going. 

They had goals, and they were working to achieve them. More than most people Eiffel knew had ever done. Hell, it was more than Eiffel had ever really done before now. 

So the days were okay. 

And the nights weren’t always awful.

Sometimes, if Eiffel was feeling a particular combination of lonely and brave or Minkowski had failed again to find where Koudelka had disappeared to or Lovelace had worn herself out for once in a blue moon, the three of them would pile into one hotel room with every pillow and blanket they could find and watch the crappiest, most awful movie they could possibly find on the cable and eat whatever snacks Eiffel had squirrelled away. 

No films set in space, though. 

Those nights were rare, though, and it was way too common for Eiffel’s nights to be spent lying alone in his hotel bed trying not to relive every mistake he’d ever made. Sleeping would seem like a good way to avoid that, but the only time he’d tried he’d dreamed about the last times he’d spoken to Hera and Anne in a parallel he had never wanted to see. Long story short, sleeping was off the table. 

Which led him to tonight, lying awake and cold even through the extra blankets he had requested.

He was trying to decide between a rerun of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and some show about sea turtles when the knock came at his door. 

Probably Minkowski, hearing him watching TV at 2 am and pretending she hadn’t been awake hunting down every mention of her husband online in an effort to figure out where he’d disappeared to. 

Eiffel was in no way eager to try and pretend he didn’t want to hug her and cry until he didn’t have any tears left in his body and also maybe kiss her, a little. 

So he took his sweet time getting up, stretching, slowly making his way to the door. 

Until the knock came again, faster and more forceful. “Eiffel, get your ass out here before I tell Minkowski that she can eat all the Hawaiian pizza without you!” 

Eiffel stopped taking his time getting to the door and jogged over, flinging it open to let in Lovelace and Minkowski and the sweet, sweet smell of pineapple and pizza sauce and grease. 

If there was one thing about coming home Eiffel would never regret, it was twenty four hour access to pizza. 

“I think I love you,” he breathed.

“What kind of girls do you think we are?” Lovelace retorted with an easy smirk. “At least take us on a date before you drop the l-word.” 

Eiffel shook his head. “I was talking to the pizza. I need some alone time with it, stat.” He grabbed the top couple of boxes off of the stack in Lovelace’s arms and led the two women back into his room to hole up and share in the glorious cheesy treasure. 

Minkowski snorted, watching him tear into the pizza with a fervor that would have scared a starving wolf away from it. “You know that is for the three of us, right?” 

“Eh, I don’t see your name on it.”

Lovelace snorted. “I don’t see yours either.” 

Eiffel swallowed his bite of pizza before responding. “Actually, I’ve legally changed my name to Papa John’s Papa Murphy’s Little Caesar's Pizza Hut, so almost every pizza box now has my name on it.” 

Minkowski knocked his hand away when he reached for a third piece, rescuing it for herself. “You’re ridiculous.” 

He shrugged. “I’m learning to live with it. There’s a twelve-step program and everything.” 

Minkowski grinned wryly at him, shaking her head. Her smile was almost as bright as the picture in her personnel file - a couple years younger and a couple years without almost literal constant hell did a lot to a person. 

But looking at her smiling like that, it was hard to think about everything that had happened on the Hephaestus and easy to think of as many ways as possible to see that smile again.

Maybe tonight wasn’t gonna be a bad night, after all. 

Eiffel could live with more nights like this. 


	2. part ii

Lieutenant-Commander Renée Minkowski had always taken pride in her excellent memory. Even now, she could still remember every Pryce and Carter tip (or at least enough to make Eiffel believe she knew them all), could still perform any of the myriad chores she’d had to do every day on the Hephaestus, and could still hear just how human Hera had sounded when she’d told the three of them goodbye. 

The blood on Lovelace’s arm and torso. That blankness on Eiffel’s face. That ringing in her ears.

What she couldn’t remember, though, was how much taller Dominik had been than her or how he liked his coffee or the look in his eyes when he’d watched her board the shuttle over two years ago. Had she even looked back?

That didn’t matter now, though, because she was  _ home _ , she was on earth and so what if Dominik hadn’t been waiting for them with the rest of the press who’d tracked their shuttle’s descent to Earth? So what if she still couldn’t find him, months later. That didn’t matter either. Minkowski had the internet and a legal team and more than enough donated money and Lovelace and Eiffel and  _ she would find him _ . 

He couldn’t just be  _ gone _ , Goddard couldn’t be that powerful. 

When the first lead was found, it wasn’t even Minkowski who found it.

It was maybe five am - she wasn’t sure exactly the time, she hadn’t slept last night and was still having trouble syncing her sense of time back to Earth’s. Lovelace and Eiffel had the same problem. Now, though, the two of them were slumped over each other and sleeping soundly on the couch in the apartment the three of them had started renting when they eventually got tired of the constant motel room shuffle. 

Their soft breathing was a low background track to Minkowski’s research, just under the clatter of her keyboard and the rush of the heater. Something inside her wished she was lying on the couch there with them, leaning across Eiffel, resting her head on Lovelace’s lap even if it meant Lovelace snoring in her ear or Eiffel’s cold hands on her arm.  _ Koudelka _ , she reminded herself, and looks at her wedding ring sitting on the desk next her.  _ Dominik. _ (She still wanted that. Wanted them.)

Lovelace woke up with the sun, stretching and yawning and shoving Eiffel over till he lay against the couch’s other armrest. She took a moment to rub her upper right arm, and considered her prosthesis where it lay on the floor before shrugging and leaving it there. 

“How’d you sleep?” she asked Minkowski, yawning loudly. 

Minkowski did not want to admit that she hadn’t slept. She just shrugged, and clicked onto another report from one of Koudelka’s former coworkers of the last day they’d seen him. This particular report was the most interesting - the worker had seen new people that day, smiling almost eerily in perfectly pressed suits and business cards they’d flashed around but only given to Koudelka. 

She had already read it twenty times. Maybe this time she’d find something new. 

Lovelace got up without her noticing, and Minkowski only realized her presence when Lovelace leaned over her shoulder, skimming the document in front of her. 

“You’ve read this already,” she said, no judgment or surprise in her tone. Just understanding that this was the way things were. Lovelace got to leave all day almost every day, meeting with legal teams and media representation, and Minkowski got to spend all night following conspiracy theories about disappearing reporters in the wake of Goddard’s disappearing astronauts. Eiffel just seemed to want to keep all three of them alive. Minkowski didn’t blame him. She didn’t know where she would be without the two of them or Dominik in her life now. 

“Minkowski,” Lovelace said, setting a hand on Minkowski’s shoulder. “I know you need to find him, but you need to be alive in order to do so.” Her grip tightened momentarily, and she pulled Minkowski’s chair around till they faced each other. 

Lovelace’s eyes were dark and serious, and for a second Minkowski lost track of her train of thought in their depth. “Get some sleep,” Lovelace said, and patted Minkowski’s shoulder. “I’m sure Eiffel would love the company, and I can keep looking here.” She pointed at her head, smiling more gently than she ever had in their year on the Hephaestus together. “Fresh eyes, right? Maybe I’ll see something you haven’t yet.” 

Minkowski shook her head and sighed. “Lovelace, I gotta keep looking. He wouldn’t stop looking for me.” 

“I know, but he also wouldn’t run himself into the ground like an idiot,” Lovelace pointed out, some of that old acerbity in her tone. Her tone softened slightly as she continued. “You wouldn’t have married him otherwise.” 

Over on the couch, Eiffel murmured something in his sleep and shifted. Both women turned to look at him, neither noticing that they both had the same fond expression. 

“Fine,” Minkowski conceded, eyes still on Eiffel. “But only a couple hours, okay?”

Lovelace nodded, and stepped aside to allow Minkowski to get past her to the couch. Minkowski settled onto the opposite side from Eiffel, their feet tangling in the center of the couch. 

It seemed like only minutes later Lovelace was shaking her awake, almost pulling her off of the couch. The sun was still low on the horizon, natural light just barely illuminating the room. “I think I found something,” Lovelace was saying, tugging Minkowski to her feet before she’d even fully woken up and dragging her over to the computer. There was a piece of paper in front of the computer, Lovelace’s nigh illegible handwriting covering it. “Did you ever call the employee who made that report?” 

“They… Their phone line was disconnected,” Minkowski murmured, rubbing at her eyes with one hand and trying to read the paper. She could only catch a couple words - ‘business’, ‘Dominik’(more than once), and something about a logo that she couldn’t quite make out. 

“Well, I found them again and called them!” Lovelace was whispering, but there was triumph in her hissed tones and her eyes burned with that bright rage that Minkowski had seen too often. “I think Goddard did do something to him, they were describing a logo that couldn’t have been any other company! God, Minkowski, if they did something to him - purposefully covering up his investigations, luring him away somehow - do you know what this means?” 

Lovelace kept talking, something about legal ramifications and civil trials, but Minkowski stopped hearing anything after that question. 

What did this mean? 

Could Goddard have really done that? 

Was Dominik dead or just locked away somewhere? (Which was worse, when you were being locked up by  _ them _ ?)

She dropped her head into her hands, too tired to pull a stiff upper lip and sit up straight and get back to work like a good commander should. Well, former commander, at any rate. She forgot that detail, sometimes. A couple minutes later, having barely gotten her breath back under control, she realized Lovelace wasn’t talking anymore. Minkowski looked up to see Lovelace looking back down at her, frowning.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and that rage is gone from her eyes but Minkowski wasn’t sure the darkness that replaced it was any better. “I forgot, I… ” Lovelace sighed. “You and Eiffel are all I have here.” 

“I know,” Minkowski replied. She stood, and took Lovelace’s hand. “It’s okay, Lovelace. We’ll all stick together. Dominik will,” -she choked on her words a little, no longer sure of what Dominik will or won’t do, but soldiering on regardless- “Dominik will love both of you too, I’m sure.” 

Lovelace smiled, just a bit, and on the couch Eiffel was slowly blinking awake and already muttering something about breakfast. 

“We’re going to find him,” Lovelace promised, and squeezed Minkowski’s hand once before walking over to the couch to grab her prosthetic arm so she could help Eiffel make breakfast. 

And maybe Minkowski believed her this time. 

They did find him, of course.

How could they not, with Lovelace’s fire and Eiffel’s support and Minkowski’s determination? It was bound to happen eventually.

Not like this, though, it was never supposed to happen like this. 

After all that work, all that time, Minkowski had never sat down and let herself imagine the first time she would see her husband again after almost three years. She knew, though, that it would not have been like this. 

It wouldn't have been them, sitting in a bland room waiting for Goddard’s liaison so that the various lawyers involved could hear both sides of the story. 

It wouldn't have been him, in a sharply pressed shirt and a cutting smile, walking in to see Lovelace leaning on her shoulder complaining about the wait, or Eiffel a few minutes away from falling asleep on her other shoulder. His smile wouldn't have widened, and she wouldn't have been reminded of the smile she could always hear in Cutter’s voice. 

“Hello there, Renée,” he said brightly, and her name didn't sound right on his lips anymore. 

He sat down before she could stand up, the chair just across from hers, and took out a sleek laptop. The nametag on his suit was just as sleek and shiny, and it was only then that Minkowski realized why exactly he was there. 

“Nik,” she said, and knew her voice was not half as steady as she wanted it to be. His name sounded just as wrong as hers had. There was something in her throat, something thick and painful and she couldn't keep going. 

At his name, Lovelace sat up beside her. “Minkowski,” she breathed, too quiet for him to hear. “Is that… Is he…?” 

Minkowski just nodded, still distrustful of her own voice. She felt more than she saw Lovelace tense beside her, ready to intervene the moment Minkowski said the word.

Koudelka watched the two of them, careful and cautious and she  _ remembered _ now. She remembered that he had been just taller enough than her to put things on the top shelf she couldn't reach, remembered that he always read for an hour before bed and liked his coffee more like a dessert than a drink. She remembered that she hadn’t looked back when she left, not once, too excited for the possibilities that lay ahead of her. 

And maybe that was why they were on opposite sides of the room now. 

“Isabel Lovelace, right?” he asked them, his words jarring Minkowski out of her reflection. Lovelace didn't even nod to acknowledge him, just tipped her head to one side like a predator eyeing its prey.  

Koudelka nodded for her, and continues on. “You were one of Goddard’s little pet projects, right? Mr. Cutter had such high hopes for you, you know. Such a shame things ended the way they did.” He shook his head, and though he didn't say anything about it Minkowski could see his eyes on Lovelace’s prosthetic hand and where it disappeared into her sleeve. “Such a shame.”

Eiffel is still drowsy against her other side, unwitting to the tableau playing out around him, and it's his warmth and solid weight grounding Minkowski. Stopping her from doing something they all might regret. 

Koudelka would regret it more, she would bet. 

Before anyone can get punched or say anything really stupid, the last lawyers file in and the meeting begins. 

Minkowski doesn't remember most of it. 

Just Koudelka smiling, and her holding Eiffel’s and Lovelace’s hands under the table to stop herself from punching him.

She made it till just after the meeting, till they were all making their way out of the room.

_ “Why?” she asks him, unable to ask any further questions and not even sure she wants the answer to this one. _

_ Koudelka does not stop smiling. “What else was I supposed to do while you were gallivanting across the universe, darling?” _

_ She punches him, and he frowns. _

_ It's not as satisfying as she thought it would be.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is very late, whoops! hope it satisfies anyway! i... make no promises about when the next chapter will go up. hopefully in about a week, maybe? anyway, leave a kudos or a comment if you liked! or if i broke your heart, either way.


	3. part iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lovelace and minkowski and eiffel are all alive and in love this is canon

Lovelace didn’t sleep well, usually.

Even after the three of them made it back to earth, even after their court case had been ruled in their favor and Goddard had to back off permanently, after all of that she still could not sleep. 

She’d gotten too used to a lack of gravity, and Earth weighed on Isabel Lovelace in a way that she wasn’t ever sure she’d be comfortable with again.    
In dusky summer evenings, she’d lie next to Eiffel and Minkowski and listen to the regularity of their breathing and wonder how it felt to have breathing come so easily. Even when Lovelace was lying down, it felt like there was a stone on her chest, keeping her pinned to her bed like a prison.

That’s not to say she wasn’t strong enough to deal with gravity - never let it be said that Lovelace had been one to miss the mandatory strength trainings on the Hephaestus. 

She could handle it. 

She was a big girl. 

That night, though, was especially bad. Lovelace had fallen asleep more swiftly than usual, only to wake up at some god-awful time of the morning gasping for breath and feeling as though the very air itself was heavier than it should have been. 

Eiffel was snoring next to her, mumbling something about pizza. Unsurprising. It was dark enough that Lovelace could barely see him despite their closeness, and she could only just hear Minkowski’s soft breaths on his other side. Both still asleep, then. Good. Lovelace hated it when she woke them up.

Lord knows she’d caused them enough trouble in their shared history.

She’d gotten them home, though. She would never regret that, no matter what the price had been. 

Lovelace took a slow, measured breath - in for the count of ten, and out for the same, and told herself that she was getting enough air and the comforter was not suffocating her with its weight. (She told herself that a lot.) Sometimes it was enough to get back to sleep. 

After a few minutes of carefully deep breaths, Lovelace had nothing to show for it except the niggling feeling that the comforter was still too heavy and the increasing desire to get up and  _ do _ something. She sighed and shifted slightly, kicking more of the blanket over to Eiffel. He’d probably steal most it by morning, anyway. He was always cold. 

A car passed outside - stark headlights coming through the window like the flash just before an explosion and before she knew it Lovelace was on her feet and halfway to the gun safe in the closet. 

The light passed without incident, followed by no explosion of rubble and a second of sound before the vacuum of space steals in through the hole in the hull to suck it away. Followed by nothing but the soft rumble of the engine fading into the night. 

Lovelace sat down on the floor. (Quietly, she reminded herself. Minkowski and Eiffel were still asleep, after all.) 

When she’d imagined coming home, she had never imagined anything after defeating Goddard. ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ had never factored into her plans. 

She wasn’t sure if this counted as happily ever after by the standards of most storybooks. 

Most of her crew was still dead. Goddard was still functioning. Eiffel was too quiet half the time, and the photo he’d carried with him since they left the Hephaestus was almost too worn to see the subjects at this point. Lovelace still caught him staring at it sometimes, some pain in his eyes that she knew she didn’t want to understand. Minkowski’s husband had apparently gotten an absolutely amazing job with Goddard while they were off ‘gallivanting’, as he’d put it. Minkowski had punched him in the face and pulled Eiffel and Lovelace out of the room after her, face red and eyes hard and cold as diamonds. Later that night, Lovelace and Eiffel had done their level best to pretend they didn’t know she was crying in the shower. 

It was the most courtesy they could give her.

(Much, much later, after the three of them had talked about a lot of things and agreed on all of them, well… Lovelace would never forget the look on Minkowski’s face after they’d had sex for the first time, or what she had said. Her face and shoulders had been flushed red, but her eyes were so bright and she was almost crying - in front of Lovelace and Eiffel, another first - and she had whispered, “I never thought I’d be glad that I couldn’t remember how it felt when he kissed me.”)

And Lovelace herself… Well, Eiffel had once joked that the price of the trip home had been ‘an arm and a leg’. She had laughed and thrown her prosthetic arm at him. He’d responded that gee, it was so nice of her to give him a hand! Even Minkowski had coughed to cover up a laugh at that. 

The memory still brought a smile to Lovelace’s face. 

Outside the window, the slow blink of a satellite made its way across the sky, and Lovelace silently pushed herself to her feet and made her way across the bedroom. 

Maybe the traditional storybooks wouldn’t consider this one a happy ending.

That was fine by her. 

It was more than enough to slide into the bed and have Eiffel automatically curl around her, all skinny limbs and cold feet. To feel the bed move as Minkowski rolled over to pile on top of them, the weight of her far more bearable than that of gravity alone. To hear the soft noise of Minkowski letting her arm fall over Eiffel and her fingers rest just brushing Lovelace’s stomach. Lovelace turned just far enough to kiss each of them on the forehead once, gently, barely brushing their skin with her lips. 

She still didn’t feel like she’d be able to fall asleep tonight, but Eiffel and Minkowski would probably let her nap on them tomorrow during movie night.

This was enough of a happy ending for her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i definitely have more in this verse planned if anyone is interested? comment, kudos, any way to let me know :0

**Author's Note:**

> look forward to the next chapter on Saturday or Sunday! :D did you like it? leave a comment, kudos, let me know your thoughts. there's not enough survivors club in the world. especially angsty post-Hephaestus survivors club. also, happy slightly late birthday, harper! hope it was a good one. :D :D


End file.
